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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Moms Who Vax: Why Am I So Certain?

By Gillian Tarr

People who don’t vaccinate their children intrigue me. If I
knew any personally, and was on good enough terms to have a frank discussion, I
would be so tempted to put them under a microscope and try to
understand where the wires had gotten crossed. Perhaps that’s why I don’t
know anyone who’s ever admitted to me that they don’t vaccinate their
children.

Being
a typical 21st-century denizen of the Internet, I’m aware of the
wide variety of arguments often used against immunizations. Whether they’re
being spouted by some swindler trying to sell garbage to bamboozled parents or
by the bamboozled parents themselves, I haven’t yet read a line I would buy,
and certainly none I would stake my children’s lives on.

Gillian and one of her daughters.

Why am I so certain? You see, I’m not just the lucky mommy
of two amazing little girls. My first passion in life was infectious
disease epidemiology, and I’ve had the great opportunity to work directly with
vaccine programs. I also have a Masters degree in epidemiology, as well as a
graduate certificate in vaccine science and policy.

My
education and all the reading required by my training and the original research
I’ve conducted left me assured that immunization was one of the greatest
triumphs of public health. So when it came time to vaccinate my own
children, I didn’t hesitate. I was that parent making the special
appointment to get my daughter Prevnar 13 when it came out despite her having
already completed her series of Prevnar 7 (protection against six more strains
of Streptococcus pneumoniae!). I was that parent convincing our
pediatrician to give my 22-month-old daughter FluMist off-label (higher efficacy than the inactivated vaccine in children).

While
I made sure my own family was as protected as we could be, I didn’t start paying
much attention to the anti-vaccine movement till I was working on a phase 4
vaccine trial with a state health department. Part of my job was to telephone
pertussis cases and potential pertussis cases. I talked to hundreds of
families. Anyone can find a website with a description of what pertussis
does to a person, but hearing it first-hand was a completely different
experience. Parents described how their children had suffered, and how
they felt powerless to help them. Some even openly lamented their
previous choice not to vaccinate their children. Having my own children,
I can’t understand how some parents can set their children up to suffer, leave
them open to preventable diseases.

But
of course, they think they’re saving their children from something worse. There
are so many websites, blog posts, Facebook rants on one side or the other. Almost
everyone claims they’ve read "the literature" and that “science” supports them. Of
course there’s also the conspiracy theory folks who purport the published
literature is filled with lies and everyone’s in Big Pharma’s pocket. If these
people knew how vaccines are developed and studied, they would realize they’re
talking about thousands and thousands of people that would have to be paid off.
People like me. I won’t even go into how little folks in public
health are paid...

If you’re making a potentially
life-or-death decision for your child, whom do you trust? Do you trust
the random blogger who pulls out choice sentences from studies to prove her
point but neglects the rest of the study that negates it? What about the
folks that list dozens of animal studies on some vaccine your child wouldn’t
even receive? Dr. Bob Sears, whose only credentials as a vaccine expert
are of his own making? Are you reading the literature yourself and
substituting your understanding of it over that of the specialists who’ve
devoted their lives to science and the analysis of scientific research? Do you dismiss the advice of the CDC, the
AAP, and the doctors and researchers who have devoted their lives to
understanding and improving vaccines? If so, why?

When did the experts become the ones you can’t trust and the
amateurs--many of whom are just trying to sell you something—become the ones
you bank your children’s lives on?

On
the rare occasion that I do discuss vaccines with someone, I don’t try to
convince them that vaccinating is the right choice. I simply give them
resources so they can see for themselves what the true experts say and try to
point out the difference between the consensus of the scientific community and
the opinions of a few.

Gillian is the mother of two glorious little girls and trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist. She currently works in the private sector but remains passionate about public health.

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About Moms Who Vax

Moms Who Vax was founded by two mothers, one of whom was initially vaccine-hesitant. The posts here are authored by parents, mostly mothers, which are submitted to us directly. We are unaffiliated with any organization or company, do not sell ad space, do not, in other words, make a dime from our efforts. It should go without saying that we have no relationship with any pharmaceutical company. If we did, we'd probably be able to dress better.

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